


don't fall in love so easy

by girljustdied



Category: Misfits (TV 2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2019-10-03 21:05:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17291411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girljustdied/pseuds/girljustdied
Summary: or, 5 times alisha doesn’t fall in love with simon (she’s already fucking there).





	don't fall in love so easy

**Author's Note:**

> au version of 3x06.  
> section titles are all say hi to your mom songs.

**(1.) the reigning champ of the teething crowd**

She can’t figure out how to be what she was like before. Nathan’s telling Simon that his first fumbled foray into the bump and grind must have turned that cute, smiley, popular bint off—

“Jessica,” Simon corrects, his hands winding together. “Her name’s Jessica.”

“Well, lovely Jessica probably couldn’t stomach your weird sexual proclivities, mate. We’ll just have to find you a girl who’s a bit freakier.”

And Curtis is chuckling under his breath, and Kelly is calling Nathan a wanker, and Alisha—Alisha’s silent. Remembers the things Simon did—that he’ll do—to her with his eyes and his words and his mouth and his hands. Makes her throat close up.

So. This is where she should be laughing as well, maybe, with a mean glint in her eye. Or pointedly ignoring the whole scenario. Or flirting with Curtis—no, wait, that’s over. Instead she searches Simon’s face carefully, looking for something. A sign. Breath caught in her chest.

He’d told her to let it play out. And she’s trying—but it’s really fucking difficult. Moreso everyday.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Simon finally speaks up. He doesn’t sound quite like he believes it, but saying the words aloud is still a change. Even if he turns on his heel and takes off afterwards. Invisible boy.

“So sensitive,” Nathan mocks, hand on his heart. He actually seems halfway apologetic, which makes him act like even more of a prick, somehow. “See what happens when I try to help the little bastard out? No gratitude.”

When Alisha stands and stalks off after Simon, she hears Curtis murmur “What is up with _her_?”

She sure as fuck can’t explain it, not totally, not even to herself. It’s like a compulsion, following Simon around. Waiting. Never felt this way before. Can tell Simon senses her approach when she catches up to him in the locker room by the tensing in his shoulders.

“Are you all right?” she asks, still shocked by the amount of concern that manages to edge into her voice no matter how hard she tries to reign it in.

He turns to face her awkwardly, and nods.

“You want me to use my power on Nathan?” and when Simon pulls a face—obviously doesn’t, makes her fingertips twitch with the need to reassure him—she explains, “We could make fun of all the pervy shit _he’d_ say.”

“I’m not a pervert.”

“That’s not what I—” she plops down on the bench, hands propped on her thighs. “I know, Simon.”

He sits next to her after a long moment, a careful amount of space between them.

She doesn’t want to embarrass him, but she has to ask. “Did you—you know?”

He looks over at her quizzically. “What?”

“Did you make her come?”

He looks down at his hands, embarrassed. Nods just slightly, brow knit.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know if I should be discussing this with you,” his voice kind of raw.

She doesn’t even want to talk to him about it. Doesn’t want to think about him and another girl. Steels her will and plows forward anyway—just needs to make him feel better. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He’s doggedly sincere when he replies, “Yes.”

“So,” she prods his foot with her own fleetingly. Nice. He makes her feel like she’s _nice_. “You’re a natural Casanova, huh?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” his tone a little giddy even though he’s obviously trying to stay reserved. “Just—she made this sound. And her insides sort of clenched around—oh, no, I’m sorry. Sorry.”

He’s suddenly looking at her with alarm, and she realizes with a start that her eyes are stinging, her jaw is tight.

“No, it’s my fault,” she stutters, wipes at her cheeks. Works to make herself really mean the words, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You’re upset,” his eyes practically digging under her skin. She’s afraid he’d figured it all out until he speaks up, “It’s been a long time since someone—”

“Ages,” she cuts him off. It’s a lie, and it isn’t.

He doesn’t say the words out loud, but they hang heavy in the air between them anyway: You didn’t do anything wrong, either. _It’s not down to you. None of us asked for this._

This Simon tentatively raises a hand instead, rests it lightly on her shoulder. It’s like suddenly she can breathe again.

 

 

**(2.) let’s talk about spaceships**

“What do you call—” fuck’s sake, she can’t remember the word— “questions?”

Her words are slurred. She’s too drunk. Should leave—should—for the first time in her life she’s afraid of the consequences of getting too fucking plastered. Leans her head against Simon’s shoulder and can feel him tug a strand of her hair from his mouth. She likes it like this. Last two standing.

“Questions?” His voice verging on affectionate. She sort of hates that. So close to her head like that. She’s gotta pull back.

“The kind that don’t mean anything.” He’s really smart, yeah. He should get it.

Plus, he seems like he’s barely even buzzed.

“I don’t—” but then he pauses. “Do you mean a hypothetical question?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it.” She stumbles a bit against him before leaning back against the wall for support instead. Funny, the stone just doesn’t feel as steady.

“Alisha, do you want me to get us a taxi?”

“I was wondering about time travel,” she ignores his question, watches his face careful as she can manage with the lights blurring soft and the bar so loud and fast around them.

He sobers. “What about it?”

“I dunno,” she’s suddenly ashamed of herself. At a loss for words. “Just in general, like. Forget it.”

“Did Curtis—” he says more, but she can’t make it out over the sound of what could almost be jealousy.

It makes her smile. “No, nothing like that.”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Okay.”

“Go on, then,” she urges. But just as he’s about to speak, she interrupts— “I think I’m gonna be sick.” Legs it to the nearest toilet, doesn’t even have time to lock the door behind her before she’s emptying her guts into the bowl.

She hears the door creak open slowly behind her. “Alisha? Should I—”

“For fuck’s sake,” she groans before retching again. Flinches at the feeling of him very carefully pulling her hair back from her face. Miserable. She feels miserable. She wants to feel his cool hands on the nape of her neck. “Oh, _fuck_.”

It’s almost like he can tell—because while he keeps one hand in her hair, the other moves to touch her back firmly through the fabric of her dress. He curves his fingertips in so that she can feel them better.

“Simon,” she slumps back away from the toilet, chin to chest, flushes it with a blind arm. His hands twitch and then separate from her. “Can you just talk for a stretch?”

“Why? What about?”

“I just want to hear your voice.” It’s the truth. She shouldn’t have. She misses him—not him—so much. So fucking much. How he made her feel. But when Simon doesn’t start talking right away, she snaps, “Forget it.”

Feels a wave of nausea, leans back up over the toilet, but nothing comes out. It’s then he starts talking, his voice a quiet, echo-y rumble in the tiled space. She closes her eyes, imagines the sound waves moving from him to her, touching her skin. Enveloping.

“Time travel—you know—it’s a difficult thing to sort out. The gap between theory and practice is filled with fiction. Except for Curtis, and he’s not very forthcoming.”

“Or someone else with a power like his, yeah?” she blurts out. Feels afraid, suddenly, like she’s giving him a hint. Maybe she is, even, but it’s not one that he’d ever grasp.

“Yes,” he murmurs, and goes quiet.

“You’re really shit at this,” she means it to be teasing, but it comes out sounding a bit harsh even to her own ears.

“I was just thinking about the concept of a—a closed loop. It’s the easiest option. If someone goes back, it’s because they always had. Like _Terminator_. Nothing’s changeable, it’s all fated. Less of a headache than—”

No. “Stop.”

“What—”

“Stop—stop talking,” and then she’s throwing up again. Dark bile, nothing else left inside of her. When Simon moves to help with her hair again, she throws out an arm to hit him, make him scuttle back. As soon as she can speak, “Get out! Get the fuck away from me, seriously.”

She can hear him breathing hard. Just breathing. She thinks maybe he’s getting used to her, isn’t sure if he should really leave.

“ _Go_ , Simon.” She can’t make herself turn to look over her shoulder at him. Hears him stand. And the sound of the door. Open. Voice shaking, eyes brimming with tears, she begs, “Please, just leave me the fuck alone.” Close.

So, there she is. Sobbing. Alone in a disgusting washroom, mouth rancid and mind spinning with pure, clinical sense. Things she doesn’t want to be possible—much less _true_.

Decides all this vomiting has gotten her too sober, washes her hands, rinses out her mouth, and heads for the bar again. Stumbles towards her dad’s car an hour later, presses the key into the lock on the door—stops. Leans down and grinds her forehead against the cool metal of the hood. Things are spinning. Thoughts are fuzzy and running into one another. So is the world in general. Something’s changed. Something about her. She shouldn’t—she should call a taxi—what was it that Curtis had said about—Simon—what if she hurt someone?—should _call_ someone—call _him_ —not Simon. Simon.

He answers in the middle of the first ring, “Hello.”

“Simon, I’m sorry. I’m a fucking bitch.”

He’s quiet for a second. “You were drunk.”

She takes in a deep breath. “I’m still well oiled. Could you drive me and my dad’s car home?”

“You know I haven’t taken the test yet—”

She starts to protest, “Hello? I’m not even supposed to drive in the first place—”

“Did it occur to you that I might be home by now? Trying to sleep?”

“No,” she hiccups. “Are you?”

“No,” she hears his voice through the speaker as well as from a distance. Turns to find him ten meters away, phone pressed carefully to his ear. “Hi.”

“Hiya,” she can’t help smiling. It’s like she has no control over her fucking face. Talks in the phone still while watching him move down the street towards her. “Sorry I look so wrecked.”

“You don’t look—” he trips on a small rock. Recovers, comes to a stop a few steps from her. “You look,” his voice trails off.

“What?”

“Tired,” he answers hesitantly.

“Cheers,” she says sarcastically, holds the keys to the car out towards him with a bit of attitude.

His eyes slip from hers as he moves close enough to take them from her. Speaks quietly into the phone, gaze on the keys moving from her hand to his. “It’s not—you’re always beautiful. You just seem—”

She feels like she’s gonna cry again, blurts out, “You’re wrong, by the by.”

His brow furrows, and he still talks into his stupid fucking phone even though his eyes flick back up to hers, “What?”

She hangs up, stuffs her cell in her handbag. He stares at her as if he’s shocked she cut out on him, and she tries not to giggle. Fails a little.

“About time travel.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Curtis told me—he told me things. About having to go back again and again. Different things kept happening—it took him a while. But he _changed_ stuff. Things can change. We’re not—things don’t have to play out like they did before.”

They can’t. She can’t take it—whatever this is.

He eyes her with a bit of confusion before shaking his head as if to clear it. “It’s just a messier theory. I would have gotten to it, the second _Terminator_ film—”

“ _Life’s_ messy, Simon. It’s a fucking pigsty. Haven’t you got that by now?”

He regards her carefully. Turns the keys over and over in his hands before circling around to open the passenger side door for her. Doesn’t speak again until he’s been driving—cautiously, eyes practically glued to the road—for five minutes or so.

“I wish we could have become friends earlier,” his eyes flick towards her for the first time, like he’s checking to see if she’s going to protest the fact that they’re mates.

“Why?” she asks. Watches his mouth turn into a soft, secret smile.

“You’re smart.”

No one’s ever called her _that_ before.

“Clever _and_ beautiful, huh?” She resists the urge to reach out and touch his hair. He’d probably wreck the car. “I sound like a catch.”

“Yeah.”

 

 

**(3.) she just happens to date the prince of darkness**

They’re not seeing one another. No one would ever say that.

Well, no one except Nathan, who won’t stop going on about how unnatural it was for a girl like her to be hanging all over the least desirable of the gang.

“You could at least go for Kelly, make things interesting.”

“Would it kill you to not be such a fucking dildo every second of every day?” is pretty much the safest thing Alisha can manage to reply.

Kelly snorts, rolls her eyes. “Probably.”

“She’s not,” Simon frowns, like he’s defending her honor or something, “going for me.”

“Yeah, well fuck the lot of you.”

Well, no one except that prick and Kelly, who keeps giving her sidelong glances like she’s keying into Alisha’s thoughts—things that most definitely should not be shared. _Don’t say anything. Please just don’t say anything. Forget it. It’s nothing._ She thinks it over and over and over—so Kelly mostly does.

“Your thoughts don’t make any fuckin’ sense to me anyways.”

Understandable. Alisha barely even makes a load of sense to _herself_ nowadays.

And then there’s Curtis, who somehow still manages to project jealousy while he’s got Nikki on his arm. All that lovely skin. Touching. So maybe she’s a little jealous, too. Maybe she’d always be. She’s not a robot, all right?

“I’m just worried about you. And him. It seems like a disaster waiting to happen.”

And Curtis is concerned, seriously. She can see it in his eyes. It makes her miss him the tiniest bit. Maybe a lot of their relationship had been about sex—and lack of sex—but he was still the first guy she’d probably ever loved. He was there for her at time when she really needed it, helped set her straight.

“Well, I’m not your problem anymore, yeah?” a hint of bitterness in her tone.

“Don’t be like that, Alisha.” He shrugs helplessly, doesn’t try to touch her. “I can still be there for you.”

Problem is he can’t be. Not really. Not anymore. She needs something more, she wants something more. Someone else.

Even Nikki brings it up, all casual like—like it’s not something that would rock Alisha’s foundations.

“You and Simon,” the girl applies blush in the mirror next to her carefully, eyes sharp. “Excuse me for saying, yeah—but that seems really fucking strange.”

“It’s—it’s not. He makes me feel different. Better. Special. _He’s_ special.”

“Ah. Sorted.”

All right. So she’s a fucking liar.

The only person that wouldn’t say they were seeing one another was Simon.

She tags along with him and Nathan—to her total distress a mainstay in her new lifestyle of stalking Simon until he turns into the man she’s still grieving over—to go watch a special showing of some sort of documentary about aliens—

“No, that’s the name of the film,” Simon corrects. “ _Alien_. Ridley Scott.”

“Who?” the name sounds familiar but she can’t place it. “Did he make that movie with Russell Crowe in a skirt?” Simon nods, and it fills her with a, well, a silly sort of pleasure to know she’s right. Even moreso after he sort of grins when she says, “That one was rubbish.” Makes her feel warm even though their breaths are a thick smoke in the cold night air.

“You two are disgusting,” Nathan exclaims, and takes off. “Absolutely sickening.”

Simon watches Nathan go, discomfort suddenly reading in the lines of his body. It’s actually strange; she thought he’d managed to finally loosen up with her. Inch by inch.

“Can we just go get a pizza or something instead?” she kids.

His cheeks pinken, and then they’re up in the queue. He buys her ticket. Doesn’t mean much, she thinks. He usually buys Nathan’s, too.

The movie is actually kind of scary, but halfway though Simon puts his hand on her knee over her leggings and then she can’t think straight anymore. Spends the last hour forcing herself to not drag his hand further up her leg, under her skirt. That or hit him. Or write a fucking poem. She doesn’t even know anymore.

“So. What the fuck was that?” she waits to ask until he’s walking her home.

He plays dumb, “What?”

“In the theater. Your hand. On my thigh.”

She guesses she must sound sort of angry, because he gets a little defensive. “I—I don’t know—Nathan said—”

“Oh, _Nathan_ said,” she huffs out, exasperated. Simon looks like he’s gonna backpedal even more, and she can’t take it. Can’t. She’d been waiting for this. For him to make a move. Technically, he had. Right? “Well—are you gonna come up or what?”

“I’ll come up,” he answers immediately, even though his face still a bit shell-shocked. “If you want.”

“Do _you_ want to?”

“Yes.”

So she takes him up to her room. He stands awkwardly next to her bed, fingertips tracing the line of her quilt. He’s got such lovely hands.

“You can sit, if you want to.”

And he just does. She likes that—how he doesn’t have to fill every moment, every action, every second with words. It used to make her skin itch, before, but now it’s strangely comforting. She’d thought that it was her that changed, but maybe it was him. Confidence.

She straddles his lap, hands on his shoulders. He doesn’t flinch.

“Have you ever tried to sort out how long it takes?” he asks, eyes steady on hers. Anyone else would be staring at her tits. Or her mouth, at least. It must be a respect thing, because she knows he wants her—can feel his cock hard against her inner thigh. She shifts against him, which makes his next words come out in a rush, “For your power—to activate—I mean—”

“Seriously?” He nods, so she tries to think. “A few seconds, at least—”

And then he just leans up and kisses her. Barely a peck. His mouth is dry, and it lasts a split-second. She could almost believe she imagined it if he wasn’t looking up at her so expectantly.

“Oh,” she lets out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Is that all right?”

She can only nod in response, heart hammering in her chest.

“I’ve—I’ve thought about doing that. For a very long time.”

His words flip a switch inside of her. “So have I.” She pushes him back down into the bed, molds her body to his, everything familiar. Everything right. Crushes her mouth to his, tongue teasing his lips for barely a second before he grabs her shoulders over her jumper and pushes her apart from him.

“What?” her voice dazed. She tries to kiss him again, but his grip is strong. “What are you doing?”

“I want to remember. I don’t want to forget this.”

“Oh, god.” She’d forgotten completely.

Her back slumps, forehead meeting his chest. She feels his mouth press to the crown of her head through her hair.

“Alisha?” he asks quietly, one hand moving slowly up the line of her spine, bunching her dress up a bit.

“Mmm?” she murmurs into his shirt.

“I’ve thought about other,” his voice trails off for a second, “things.”

She tilts her head up to meet his eyes dead on. “Show me.”

 

 

**(4.) sweet sweet heartkiller**

She’s going to fucking kill him. As soon as she can get her hands on him, before her power can even begin to make him wax all romantic about how he wants to fuck her with her vibrator until she’s come so many times it hurts—again—he is fucking dead. That’s all she can think. If he’s not already.

Shit. Fuck. _Simon_.

She sprints from room to room in the warehouse and tries not to think about the last time she was in this sort of place. Fails absolutely miserably.

Simon can’t _die_. Not him, too—not again. He can’t, she … he just can’t, all right?

She shouldn’t have encouraged the superhero shit. Fighting crime. Especially when no one in the gang but her was up for it as well. For fuck’s sake, she was supposed to protect him. Not tell him it was the right thing to try and track down a boy who’d gone missing from one of their community service gigs.

Turns out the kid was actually one of those serial killing perverts who liked to pretend to be younger in chat rooms to lure in troubled teens. The storm must have been a bleeding dream come true. Perfect disguise and all that.

The plan had been for Simon to subdue the wanker while invisible, but the man got lucky as fuck with a knife and suddenly Simon’s visible—blade in his gut. The man yanks it out, goes to drive it in again, and Alisha can’t take it. Can’t let it happen. Bursts from her hiding place and grabs his neck tight, skin to skin so as to distract him with her power.

It works brilliantly until he’s pinning her down. She jerks her arms out, reaching for anything that might be heavy enough to hit him with. Finds the man’s forgotten knife and doesn’t think twice before driving it deep into his back. He goes still, and she shoves him off. Crawls over to Simon desperately. His eyes are closed.

“Simon, please,” she’s crying. Wipes at her face and tries to breathe through it. Fuck. She shakes him by the shoulders, “Don’t do this to me.”

She presses her ear to his chest, can feel his heart beating just barely. Faint. Slow. Is it slowing? What the fuck is she supposed to do? It doesn’t feel like he’s breathing. She hoovers a trembling, bloody hand over his mouth to try and feel his exhales against her fingertips. It’s there, damp against her skin, but not as hot as it usually is.

“Simon, what should I do?”

He doesn’t answer. His eyelids don’t even flicker. A strange thought passes through her mind—if she’d only touch her fingertips down, then what? Death by violent horniness? Or—

She touches his bottom lip with her index finger. Slides it across his face until her palm is cupping his cheek. Nothing. No—no—no—no—no—

“A—” he sucks in a deep inhale, arches his back. “Alisha! F-fuck!”

She lets go immediately, and he slumps back down, body shaking.

“Help me,” barely makes it past his lips. She tries to remember the countless medical programs she’s watched on TV. Uses her hands to give pressure to the wound in his stomach. “That’s good,” he murmurs.

“I’m going to call an ambulance—”

“No,” his eyes darting past her to the motionless figure on the floor a few meters away. “You can’t.”

“What?” awful flashbacks of the other Simon in her arms, telling her to let him die. “Why?”

“He—he looks dead.”

She checks over her shoulder. “Oh, _fucking hell_. We really need to stop killing people.”

He reaches up and touches her hair, fingertips almost brushing her forehead. “I think I’m going to be okay.” His expression gets a little embarrassed. “I think I may have just fainted.”

“Seriously?”

He nods. “Er, Alisha?”

“Mmm?” she asks, carefully fixing his hair.

“Did you touch me? When I was out?”

Her eyes flit down to the telltale tent in his trousers; she can’t help laughing, and he does as well, and she never, never thought they’d be like this.

“Thank you,” he says when they’ve both quieted down. His voice is thick. “You saved my life.”

“Don’t do that to me again. I mean it, I can’t lose you. I—” she trails off, shakes her head.

“I can’t promise you that. Everyone dies. It’s what we do with our lives that matters.”

“Stupid bastard,” she snits. “This isn’t a comic book. We’re not superheroes.” Hates that she doesn’t even mean it.

“Then stop trying to save me all the time,” Simon counters. His voice is playful, but he’s at least partly serious.

Well, he’s got her there.

 

 

**(5.) they write books about this sort of thing**

“You’re late,” is how she greets him. Doesn’t open the door far enough to let him through the threshold.

“I know,” Simon’s mouth turns up slightly. “Am I disinvited then?”

It’s not like him to be anything but five minutes early. She knows that she should be concerned, sort out if something bad happened—most especially because he looks a little rough around the edges. But now that he’s there, safe and smiling ruefully, Alisha mostly can’t stop thinking about the cold Christmas dinner that’s been waiting in her kitchen. Well. That, and the sinking feeling the holidays always seem to bring. That sense of stagnation. They’re never gonna—

He reaches forward, cups her cheek with his hand. It’s freezing cold, but soft, and sure, and oh, god.

“What the fuck?” she exhales with a squeak. “Simon?”

Nothing’s happening. He’s touching her.

She feels like a war veteran. Post-traumatic stress. Her body vibrates at the contact; she can feel her heart opening up like a fucking flower in her chest. A small, small whimper escapes her lips.

“Happy Christmas,” his smile lopsided.

“Seriously, what the _fuck_?” she replies.

He doesn’t answer, just moves closer tentatively until his mouth is centimeters from hers.

And she really does want to know what happened—a nagging bit of worry building in corners of her mind at the thought of him going back to see that creep selling powers to the highest bidder—but then she’s just grasping his face with both hands and kissing him, mouth open against his, dragging him through the threshold.

His lips, his skin. So soft. She’d forgotten, wants to touch every inch of him. Again. Practically rips off his jacket, his hoodie. Tugs his shirt up over his head before diving back to kiss him, palms stroking the hard lines of his stomach.

“Alisha,” he chokes out against her lips as they try to maneuver towards her room, only to collapse in a heap in the den on the floor next to the couch. Her left shin slams against the edge of an end table painfully hard when she moves to sling a leg over him.

“Shit!” she cries out. But then his hand is gently touching the spot where she’s sure a bruise is gonna form, drags up her bare calve and curves under her knee. Oh—

“That advertisement—the man selling powers,” he starts to try to explain between messy pulls from her mouth.

“Shut up,” she begs. Tears her shirt off over her head. “If you don’t fuck me, right now, I’m gonna scream.” He stills, chest heaving hard, like he’s having trouble breathing. Stares up at her for a long moment. Too long. “I mean it—”

He grabs her by the back of her neck and cranes up to kiss her mid-shout. Things get frenzied, their hands skidding, fingers fumbling with clasps and buttons. It’s far from the first time now, but it still feels like it.

Simon slams his head down against the floor hard with a loud bang when she takes him inside of her, cries out partly in pain, part pleasure.

His hands flit hesitantly across her skin—it’s like he doesn’t know what to do with her now that he can actually touch her. She covers his hands with her own as she rides him, makes Simon grasp her breasts—“Harder, fuck”—makes his right palm scrape down her stomach.

She can feel him getting close far too quickly; he grits his eyes shut and pants her name over and over. She reaches down and bats his hand away to rub her clit frantically. Gasps when he cries out and thrusts his hips up hard enough to lift her body, his hands moving to grip her thighs. Just barely comes with a tiny whimper around his softening cock. Slides off him and collapses by his side.

It has to be some of the worst sex she’s ever had in her life. So why does she feel so fucking fantastic? Curls into him, one leg slung over his.

“Sorry,” he chuckles slightly. “Not used to _that_.”

“Next time,” she kisses his sweat-dampened neck. “There’ll be a next time, yeah?”

“Yes. It’s permanent.”

“Did you rob a bank? Again?” she murmurs. He’d told her he wouldn’t do that.

“Hmm?” his mouth on her temple.

“How’d you get the money?”

He’s slow to answer. “I had some of it. For the rest I traded.”

“Traded what?”

“I did some things for him,” he hedges, eyes flickering away from hers and then back. It’s not like him to be so secretive. Not anymore. It must have been bad—she grips him tighter. “And my power—I traded that as well.”

“Just so you could touch me?”

“For the ability to be immune to the powers of others.”

“Simon,” she knows how much it meant to him—invisibility. Learning to take hold of something that used to plague him. Being special. As much as she could hate her power, she has a hard time imagining her life without it now. “You didn’t—”

“It could be useful,” he interrupts haltingly, then smiles almost mischievously. It’s a relief. “I didn’t do it just for you.”

That might sting, if she truly believed him. “Why didn’t you just have him take mine instead? It has to be just as valuable.”

“To the wrong kind of person. And I didn’t want to make that decision for you. There are a lot of reasons.”

She traces the line of his collar bone, “I’m glad you did it. Whatever reason. Is that selfish?”

“Alisha,” he rests a palm low on her stomach, circles over her hip as he shifts to face her. She touches her forehead to his, doesn’t think she’s ever gonna get over it—him. “Alisha, I love you.”

“I know.”

It’s like she’s Han Solo and Simon’s the lady with the hot cross bun hair and the hero-complex.


End file.
